


The Secret To a Successful Movie Night is Bringing a Sick Person Along

by The_Great_Pumpkin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Kinda, Post-Canon, Sick Character, Sick Fic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Great_Pumpkin/pseuds/The_Great_Pumpkin
Summary: "Watching a movie was Dave’s suggestion. Part of it comes back to the fact that none of you have any actual experience in the realm of “family bonding”, and watching a movie just seemed to be the best way to breach that gap. An educational experience, so to speak.Putting it into practice is a different story."What better way to bond than through worrying over one sick Dirk Strider?
Relationships: Dave Strider & Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde & Dirk Strider
Kudos: 24





	The Secret To a Successful Movie Night is Bringing a Sick Person Along

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened because I couldn't find many sickfics featuring dirk. Technically him being sick is more of a background thing here, but the other characters do attempt to take care of him. Uhhhh they kinda (?) succeed?? 
> 
> Anyway this took me too long fhsidjgois hopefully you'll like it? And if you do, please do leave a comment!! I love reading all the comments I get!
> 
> Also I finally broke my posting schedule because I was too impatient to post this. Oh well :/

Watching a movie was Dave’s suggestion. Part of it comes back to the fact that none of you have any actual experience in the realm of “family bonding”, and watching a movie just seemed to be the best way to breach that gap. An educational experience, so to speak.

Putting it into practice is a different story. Roxy is sprawled in your lap, an arm thrown over their shoulder in a position you’d label as uncomfortable. Dave occupies your free side, leaning into you almost shyly. Rose is perched on the arm of the couch, legs crossed and an unsettling Rose-like grin on her face as she studies you, swirling the liquid in her glass. It’s only juice, so the aesthetic merits are marginally diminished, but you can concede a point or two for the crystal wine glass.

You’re not really paying attention to the movie, but Dave keeps up enough of a running commentary throughout it that you don’t miss anything important. Roxy nudges you at some point while Rose and Dave are in the kitchen, and you realize they’re observing you. You don’t like being on the end of that kind of scrutiny.

“You okay?” They sit up, their hand moving to your elbow. It should be comforting, but you can’t quite allow yourself that luxury.

“Sure. Just tired s’all.” Their eyes linger on you for a moment before Roxy nestles back onto your lap and giving your elbow one final pat.

“Hmm, you were just kinda warm. Y’know, like fever-warm.”

“That’s my regular body temperature. You yourself have commented in the past on the matter.”

They roll their eyes at you, but you get a faint grin. “I know me saying it won’t really change anything cuz it’s a staple of yours at this point but just...try not to overdo it w your work?”

You hum in response. You hate the part of you that compels you to keep yourself busy, even when there’s no need. The part that still feels like you’re walking on shaky ground around your friends.

And yet it’s still always in the back of your mind.

Dave pokes his head out of the kitchen. “You want anything?”

Roxy tells him what they’d like, but you shake your head. You sense a throbbing headache coming on. You lean back and close your eyes for a moment. Dave and Rose settle back on the couch, but of course not even a minute passes before Rose makes a remark.

“Perhaps we should pause here. Our ecto-father seems quite fatigued.”

Dave replies before you have a chance to, “Okay, I feel like you’re about to bust out your psycho-analysis goggles, if you ever even take them off, and we’ve already established that this couch is a Freud-free zone. I didn’t go through all the trouble of spraying the couch with anti-Freud juice just for you to come in with his ghost and stomp over all my hard work here.”

You quirk open an eye and glance at Rose, whose eyebrows are raised so intricately you’d find it hard not to at least give her a nod of acknowledgement. Except you don’t, because the prophetized headache is starting to show up.

“Anti-Freud juice? Dave, if anything, any juice you might spray over the couch would only increase the chances of Freud’s ghost making an appearance.”

It takes a beat for Dave to respond. “Okay, so maybe I walked right into that one.”

You don’t need to look at Rose to know that she has a coy grin on. “I suppose that’s what we call ‘making your bed and lying in it too’. However, there is still a point to be addressed.”

“There is no such point,” you want to say, but that’s when you feel the bile crawling up your throat. You clamp your mouth shut, shove your shades farther up your nose and bolt out from under Roxy to haul ass to the bathroom.

And because nothing ever goes according to plan for you, before you’ve even reached the toilet you feel the bile rushing out from the back of your throat. _Fuck fuck fuck._

You almost slip on the tiles as you basically throw yourself at the toilet, dignity be damned. You’re shaking as you spew your lunch into the toilet bowl, and you can say with relative certainty that it’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever had the displeasure of being subjected to in your life.

At least you remembered to close the door.

When it’s over you take a steadying breath and press your head into your forearm. You realize you’re still shaking. You bring down the lid on the bowl and press yourself against it, feeling the frantic thrum of your heart through it.

You wait until you feel calm again before sitting up.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s Dave. “Can I come in?” Roxy probably sent him.

You respond with a hum. You’re fine now. Mostly. Emoting isn’t your forte on a good day, so you’re not counting that in your assessment.

You hear his footsteps as he approaches and spot a towel in his hand. It’s cold and wet when he hands it to you, and thank fuck for that. You press it to your face and wonder if you taught him that trick or if he figured it out himself. Either answer presents a whole different but equally disturbing level of fucked-upness, so for now you refocus on the situation and push that thought to the back of your mind for later extrapolation.

While you were occupied with that, he’s already flushed  the toilet for you,  so  you give him a solid nod.  He rummages around the cabinets, pulling out a thermometer. There’s not really a need for it, but you comply anyway because you’re off your game today and  can’t take a stand on anything by the looks of it. Being sick really was not one of the things you had planned for. It turns out becoming a god actually has downsides.

“Doesn’t look too bad. Pretty sure it’s a stomach bug or something. Nasty little opportunists, coming in when your immune system’s gone to shit and taking advantage. You think you’re gonna hurl any more?” You shake your head and he responds in kind with a nod.

“Alright, cool. You wanna head back, or? Like we can stay here if you wanna but lying on a bathroom floor while sick sounds hella uncomfortable.”

You prop yourself against the wall, feeling the coolness of the tiles through your shirt. It’s fine now. The headache is still going strong, but comparatively you’ve been worse, so you’re okay. You lean your head against the wall, sliding your shades up to press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Fuck, there goes the dizziness again.

Dave hovers over you. “Hey. Do you need me to get Jane for you?” And it’s such a sincere question it twists something inside of you.

You draw in a breath. “No. Just dizzy.”

“You don’t feel like puking anymore?”

“Nah.”

He hums to himself. “Hey uh, can I try something real quick?”

You pull your hands from your eyes and squint up at him through your headache and your shades. There’s not much he can do to make it worse, you wager, so you shrug.

“Aight okay. So can you lean forward for a bit? Just your head.” You note that he sounds different than he usually does; his words are soft rather than mumbled, and his dialogue feels more deliberate. _He’s...nervous? Worried? Feeling awkward?_

You lean your head into your hands, which are propped on your knees. Dave goes around you slowly, probably more slowly than he really needs to, and presses two fingers to the top of your spinal cord. It feels more like he’s brushing a feather against the skin, but after a while he seems to get enough courage to press harder.

“How’s that?”

It’s...working, strangely enough? You give him a thumbs up and hope that’ll be enough of a courage boost to make him press harder.

“Okay, good.” He pauses for a moment and then adds, “Also you’re supposed to tell me if it hurts.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Yeah yeah, it’s all well and good now, but just in case, tell me if I’m hurting you?”

You are tempted to answer with your standard response, “there’s no need to worry about hurting me”, but you’re just about 10000% certain Roxy would kick your ass all the way to the moon if they ever heard you say that. And you have a suspicion that Dave would too, if he were more pushy when it came to you.

“Alright,” and if that came out softer than intended, well fuck it.

You sit in silence for a while, and it’s not even that awkward. It’s nice to just focus on your breathing and the pressure against your neck (this time without a decapitation following suit)  for once. You don’t remember a time when you didn’t busy yourself with session preparations, but sometimes, especially when you were younger and you were at the edge of  the roof of your apartment looking over the sea, you’d take a mouthful of salty air in and imagine a time and place when you  could  let go for just a moment without anything falling to pieces . Of course  you’d immediately reprimand yourself, because if  you weren’t on top of your game (and everybody else’s for that matter), then who else would be?

I t’s a different thing now that there’s no  grand er purpose, no master plans to hold everything together anymore. 

If anything, when it comes to holding stuff together, Roxy takes the cake.

Dave finally shifts so that he’s also sitting against the wall. “It might help with your headache if you lean against something that’s not a marble tile,” he clarifies when you turn towards him.

“Okay,” you say simply. Can you even really reject him?

It takes a little manoeuvring to avoid Dave’s bony shoulder as you’re leaning against him, but it works out. You don’t claim any responsibility from any pins and needles that could result on Dave’s side.

Right as you’ve finally gotten settled, someone else decides to knock on the door.  “You guys okay? No one’s died in there or anything?”

“Yeah, I mean apart from the puke projectiles, Dirk’s fine. We’re just chilling on the floor for now.”

“Gotchu. Can I come in?”

Dave glances at you from the periphery of his shades, and you shrug.

“Sure, yeah.”

You don’t  move away from Dave when Roxy opens the door, but you do press your shades more securely to your face.  You’re not embarrassed, exactly – you were literally all piled up on the couch twenty minutes ago for fuck’s sake – but there’s something still distinctly uncomfortable about being singled out like this. But it’s probably also just more of your bullshit. 

“’Sup,” Roxy says as they kneel in front of you. Their smile is stretched across their face an inch too widely even for them, and their eyebrows are scrunched so slightly you might not have even noticed if they were farther away. Roxy’s a textbook example of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cues hidden under the sparkly surface.

“’Sup,” you respond. At least you sound fine.

“Think we should be getting you into a bed asap. You look p out of it if you ask me.”

“I don’t think resorting to a bed is necessary.”

“Then you’ll have to do with the couch. That’s my final verdict as the medical expert here.”

You snort light-heartedly. “Since when?”

“Since now.” They stick their tongue out at you, but their eyes brighten up, and they’ve got their look of determination on. 

Oh no.

“Let it never be said that the Strilondes don’t treat their sick like them fuckin’ kings,” they declare, steepling their fingers over their knees. “Now let’s haul Dirk back to the couch.” They turn to Dave, giving him a conspirational look.

You sigh. “Rox, I can walk just fine. Also, I honestly doubt hauling someone  regardless of the final destination  really counts as treating them like kings.”

“See that’s where you underestimate me. Carrying sickly Dirks around to their bedsides is just part of the biz. Nothin’ to see here, folks, just one Roxy Lalonde doing the lord’s work, as always.”

Y ou lean away from Dave, propping yourself against the wall again. You need all the leverage you can get here.  I t’s really not Roxy’s fault that you have freaky control issues, so you try to keep it brisk. “I’m not gonna disintegrate if I walk to the couch on my own, I swear. It’ll be fine.” 

Roxy eyes you for a second before straightening up and heading to the door. “Okie-doke Mr. Strider Senior, then you’re on your own with the transportation issue.”

You wait a moment for Roxy to leave before rising to your feet.  Dave sort of stands to the side, watching you.

“There’s definitely a conversation in there for later.”

“Yeah,” you admit. “Later.”

You head back to the living room, and unsurprisingly, Rose is still on the couch. She’s in the same position you left her in, typing up walls of purple text to a certain someone, by the looks of it. She doesn’t so much as glance at you as you  flop  on the couch, but she’s definitely noticed you.

“Would you like a glass of water, daddy dearest?” Her voice is sickly sweet, and (you have to admit) her sense of humor is pretty spot on. Dave makes a sputtering noise behind you, like he’s choking on air.

“Rose,” he begs. “Rose, no. Please. I’m the only one in our ecto-slash-pseudo-family who’s allowed to make jokes like that, and even then it’s only with Roxy. Rose, you have no idea what you’re getting into. Who will be here to psycho-analyze the rest of us if we lose you to an Electra complex now? We’ve been through too much together just to have you drop out in the last ten meters of this race. I won’t stand for this.”

“Dave,” she says calmly. “Who said you couldn’t participate?”

You’re pretty sure Dave died on the spot judging by the sound he just made. You’ve got a few things that need clearing up here. “To claim that this is an Electra complex we’re dealing with you’d need build off the false premise that I qualify as a father. As I’m quite certain you’ve noticed, I don’t fit that role for either you or Dave.”

“You may claim so, but biologically speaking, at least, we count as your offspring. Perhaps from a sociological point of view, you fulfil a different role, but the requirement for a parental complex, as per Freud’s literary inspiration, _Oedipus Rex_ , is that of a biological relationship between parent and child.”

She’s  paving the way to  a discussion with you  based on your shared interests , which you’ d be down for, except you don’t have enough energy to  formulate an argument.  It’s also been a while since you read the Freudian psychology Wikipedia page . Dave takes the reins from you in the discussion, and you listen to Rose a s she continues to tease Dave for a while. 

Roxy comes back right in the middle of a heated discussion over the meaning of “complex”, clapping their hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, so I couldn’t find any meds, but I got you some tea. Hopefully it’s not expired? Like I’m p sure it’s not, but I’m letting ya know just in case.”

“No voidy powers?” Dave immediately bounces back from the change of subject, as expected.

“Nah, I don’t wanna mess up the chemical make-up and all. I’d feel bad if I made Dirk expired tea _and_ gave him weird meds.” Roxy plops down on the coffee table, right in front of you. You open you eyes and squint through your shades at the proffered tea. It seems fine, if a little too hot.

“You wanna drink it now or later?”

"I'll drink it later." It comes out  mumbled , and if you weren't feel like shit you'd probably roll your eyes at yourself.  
  
"Welp. I'll leave it here for you."  They  place  the steaming mug on the table,  covering it with a used plate  t o keep it warm. "We can keep watching the movie too if that's okay w you? Like if  it’s not, we can turn off the lights and let you sleep  here  or somethin' but Idk,  we’re all here anyway, so might as well make the most of it.”  They want to keep an eye on you, and, well. 

You owe them that much at least.  
  
You lift your head from where it was lying on your forearms and give them a shrug. Your shades are lopsided, so you adjust them, taking a pillow from the side of the couch to prop your head up. Roxy moves to the side of the couch that Rose is at, shifting your legs around so they're in their lap.   
  
"Oh, Dave, won't you join us?" Rose draws out his name like she’s setting a scene for the greatest own in history. You wonder if she’s doing this to prompt Roxy’s intervention as the only competent parental figure of the Strilonde name. Who are you kidding, she most definitely is.   
  
"Wow, we're letting this coyness slide, Roxy? I can't fucking believe this family."  
  
"Shuuuuuuuush,” Roxy swats at Dave playfully, even though they can’t quite reach him. “I'm starting the movie again, and if you miss out on anything that's on you, Davey."  
  
"Uh-huh. Fine." He settles on your other side, huffing, arms crossed and obviously trying to suppress a smile. "Can't believe I'm being coerced into this shit. It's a Lalonde movie viewing in this house tonight, and the Striders were left with whatever scraps were left by the blood-thirsty Lalondes. Oops, there goes the Strider dignity, dropped in the ditch of shame.”  
  
"Awww, Dave, we'd never throw your dignity into a ditch! I might drop it on accident, but I def wouldn't do it on purpose."  
  
"Thanks for the consolation, Rox."  
  
"No prob." You can't see Roxy from your angle, but you're just about certain they have their teasing smile on. Teasing is a staple of the Lalonde bloodline, it seems.  
  
"Not that I don't enjoy the spectacle we are witnessing, but I think perhaps it would serve Dirk well if we were quieter."  
  
"Oopsie," Roxy whispers dramatically. "Sorry 'bout that, Dirk."

“Mmphhmm.” Very eloquently put.

There's still a steady hum of background noise from hushed conversations between your ectofamily, and the fact that you've seen this part of the movie certainly isn't helping your cause. You haven't ever been able to quite manage sleeping in front of other people, but it's nice to sit around for a while and drift . You know that you'll probably feel differently about this once your sickness abates, but for now you let your shades slide down slightly on your nose, and close your eyes for just a minute. 


End file.
